


Time to Leave the Garden

by charlottemadison



Series: The Longest Night [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (but only a little) - Freeform, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bathing/Washing, Body Swap, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley stops time, Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Crowley's corporation has a new jacket in Hell for a reason, Gay Sex, He is a sneaky snekky time thief, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Missing Scene, Mourning the Bookshop, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Silk Boxers, Sneeze on antivaxxers, Tattooed Crowley (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottemadison/pseuds/charlottemadison
Summary: After a long night of planning and practicing to escape the judgment of Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale and Crowley prepare to leave Crowley's flat on the morning after the cancelled Apocalypse.Although it's understandable if Crowley's not in any hurry to let the night end.++++"What have you done with my trousers, you impossible thing?"The evidence around the room suggested they'd taken off only a few items of clothing before Crowley had run out of patience and snapped his fingers, with an impulse that went something like "Trousers off NOW and pants too thankyouverymuch and also the sodding SOCKS and there's sock garters as well are you fucking kidding me angel BEGONE THE LOT OF YOU"Much could go wrong with a miracle that haphazard. In his defense, he'd been distracted at the time."I think they're, um...elsewhere," said Crowley.Aziraphale tutted at him reproachfully."Sorry, angel.""I had those made-to-measure in 1952," Aziraphale muttered. "I was rather fond of them."Crowley sniffed. "Not to split hairs, but that pair was actually only a few hours old."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Longest Night [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546606
Comments: 61
Kudos: 368





	Time to Leave the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> This story can be read alone, but it may be better paired with the works leading up to this one, https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352164. 
> 
> The first four stories in this series are rated T and can be read as ace. The last two are E and involve sex between two (currently) man-shaped beings.
> 
> This is the final story from The Longest Night.

It took some time for Aziraphale to notice. Except that it didn't really, it couldn't have, because the patchwork sun and shadows had halted their morning march across the concrete penthouse walls. The birds had fallen silent, and the traffic held its breath.

Crowley shut his eyes tighter but he could not sleep. There was too much light for that. So he rolled over instead, wrapped his arms all full of light, ran his hands up and down the length of the light, buried his face in the crook of the light's neck. He gathered prepositions onto his tongue to taste his enthralling connection to what he now held: they were above, below, along, upon, around, within, about, through. Everything except "without."

Aziraphale's flighty right hand alighted in Crowley's hair, stroking and scratching gently, and the demon indicated his approval with a growl and a kiss pressed deep into the base of the angel's throat. Into the Soft Spot.

"Did you do this for me?" asked Aziraphale.

"No. Purely selfish," Crowley replied.

"Of course it is."

"Five more minutes."

"There won't be _any_ minutes if you don't put it back."

"Who needs 'em." Crowley writhed deeper into the embrace, wanting to bury himself in luscious velvety skin, trapping the angel's legs between his. He traced Aziraphale with the scaly sole of one foot, up the thigh to the hip, back down over the golden calf. He loved how arches fit over ankles and shoulders nested between each other. Loved all of this, every atom of it. The angel hummed happily and rubbed their noses together on the pillow.

Restarting time was unthinkable. Time meant parting. Time meant consequences. There should be no consequences for this. There should only be _more_ of this. For always and ever and ever and ever. More more more. Suspended on a tightrope between fears, vibrating with the effort of balancing between the last disaster and the next one.

"How remarkable to have another morning," murmured Aziraphale.

Crowley grunted. "Mngph. Rather have more than one."

"We shall, my love. I promise."

 _Love._ Crowley hid his face under the angel's chin, even though he was too close to be seen blushing.

"You can let go now, Crowley," Aziraphale whispered.

"Nope. Never. Not _ever."_

"Of the clock, not me."

 _"Mmmnnnnph-hhn-hnnnnnngh,"_ Crowley keened in a pathetic descending portamento.

Aziraphale squeezed him gently. "It's not that I'm eager to part, but I'd rather continue all of this after I know we're well and truly safe."

Crowley pulled back just enough to meet those blue-green eyes.

"You'll come back, yeh? Pick up where we left off?"

"Yes. From right here."

Crowley sighed his most put-upon sigh and scrunched up his nose in displeasure. But then he started to outline Aziraphale's face with his index finger -- eyebrows, temples, hairline, nostrils, lips -- imprinting the details he could only see up close. Fine lines, veins, pores, copper flecks in the jade irises. All this earthly armor.

"We should get cleaned up," Crowley said at last, resigned if not entirely ready. With a snap he filled the bath in the next room.

The angel smiled one of those devastating smiles that was liable to fry a demon’s language processing abilities. Today, for the first time, Crowley could ignore his rebooting brain and roll up on one elbow and kiss that smile till neither of them could breathe. _Take that, smile, 'at'll teach you,_ he thought once his brain could word again.

Crowley wrenched himself up onto his feet, loose-limbed and lax. He stretched to his full length, unspooling and yawning and cracking, reaching for the ceiling, and then he offered a hand to his angel. Aziraphale smiled again, a little shy now, glancing up and then away through long eyelashes. He took Crowley's arm and let himself be coaxed out of bed.

Together they crossed the cold tile, shuffling, shy. Aziraphale flinched at the first touch of hot water, and then he eased into the massive soaking tub set into the floor. Crowley slipped in at the opposite end and glared at the water, because it was obscuring a few things he hadn’t finished looking at yet. 

The shadows held their ground.

"Does it bother them, I wonder? Waiting?" Aziraphale wondered aloud, absently swishing a hand back and forth. Troubling the waters.

"Don't care," Crowley said, letting his head fall back onto the curved edge of the bath.

_"Crowley."_

"Ennnnnngh. Never seen any ill effects, or I prob'ly wouldn't do it," Crowley acknowledged. He wasn't sure about the logistics of it -- he didn't need to be -- but presumably _they_ were the ones doing something exceptional, not the rest of the world. He wasn't really stopping time, he was just taking a little more of it than he was technically allowed. Crowley never had been able to resist an advance pirated copy, a parking space marked CEO ONLY, a longer lie-in than was wise -- things he wasn't really entitled to. Suspending the best (and possibly last) morning of his life was just more of the same. He was exactly like the angel in that regard, really. Aziraphale loved dessert, but not nearly as much as he loved stealing bites of someone else's. No wonder they'd always got on.

Crowley found his angel's legs with his own and got them all tangled up under the water. He was deeply disinterested in anything that involved _not_ touching Aziraphale, now that the option was open to him.

"Where will you go for the day? With the bookshop gone?" asked Aziraphale.

"Dunno. Where would you go?"

"I suppose -- hm." Aziraphale developed a little wrinkle between his eyebrows, but it smoothed away as he manifested some fine French-milled soap to wash himself the human way. The angel was good at creating distractions when he needed them, Crowley thought.

"I would be quite at a loss," Aziraphale said calmly while he scrubbed, as if the whole question were hypothetical. "I suppose I would wander Soho, perhaps go to Hyde Park or -- well, I might have gone to church, actually, although I don't know whether you could."

"Church! What for?"

"To reflect, of course. Or I might have called on Rabbi Lipman, or Venerable Master Ruan.”

“Reflect on bloody _what?”_

“On the Ineffable Plan, Crowley!” Aziraphale replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “On Adam's choice, on why we're all still here, what our role has been, yours and mine -- how much of it was Her, how much of it's us, what to..." he quieted and looked down. "What happens next."

"Hmph." Crowley was absolutely not taking Aziraphale's corporation anywhere near a place of worship today. The thought of walking into a local church and seeing some stained glass homage to the warmongering wankers Upstairs turned his stomach. Not to mention the ubiquitous gory (and usually tacky) takes on Joshua's final moments.

Then Aziraphale stood up to soap his legs and torso, and Crowley could think no more thoughts that resembled thoughts.

"I suppose I'd grown rather dependent on the bookshop," the angel pondered aloud, sounding more serene than he had any right to be. "I know it's a recent development, only a couple of centuries old, but it's been...that is, it _had_ been a nice change from wandering here and there without anywhere to belong. Having someplace familiar and comfortable to get back to, between assignments. A nest of my own. ...Selfish, really. Hardly angelic."

Hands. Suds. Left thigh, front and back. Left hip. Belly. _Below._ Right hip. Right thigh. Crowley stared. He wasn't so much aroused as captivated, watching the soap bar's progress with darting eyes like a cat tracking a toy on a string.

Aziraphale sat down again and lofted five of his perfect toes out of the water. Crowley made a small helpless noise. It wasn't a squawk. It was not at all like a squawk.

"Are you quite all right, my dear? You're squawking."

"Can I?" Crowley blurted, and then he ducked his traitorous mouth under the water in embarrassment, looking up sheepishly at Aziraphale.

The angel considered. "Are you open to a trade?"

Crowley nodded quickly, sending ripples out from his half-submerged nose.

And that was how the Serpent of Eden happened to spend the first morning after the cancelled Apocalypse learning that having his feet washed by someone else was nearly as terrifying as driving headlong into a wall of infernal flame.

He didn’t know why it felt so vulnerable -- Crowley had never disliked his feet, for all he kept them hidden -- but it made him a panicky mess to be handled with such devoted attention. It was itchy in the same way as being thanked or praised or coddled, but it also felt too nice to stop, and anyway a deal was a deal --

 _"Gnaah!"_ he shouted suddenly, jerking his foot away as it flickered involuntarily through five or six shoe forms in less than a second.

"Ticklish?" Aziraphale giggled.

"Felt more like a sneeze." Crowley frowned, confused. But he volunteered the other foot for washing anyway.

"You sneeze?"

"You don't?"

"It's just so...undignified,” the angel frowned. “I generally avoid it."

"I dunno, feels good sometimes. I've left it on anyway. Useful on rich germophobic prats. Or at pretentious art galleries. Scientology conferences...antivaxx protests...John Cage performances..."

Aziraphale dropped Crowley's foot and backed away. "There you are. Now, stand up and let me do the rest of you." 

"That wasn't the deal!"

"I am wearing this later, and I want it _clean._ The old-fashioned way."

_"Fine."_

"Up you come, spit spot."

Crowley stood, grumbling something about taking orders from an angel in his own bathtub. The grumbles quickly transformed into groans of transported pleasure. Aziraphale's hands were sure and slow and unreasonably soft, and they traced Crowley’s tattoos through every twist, massaging rather than scrubbing, and -- _oh._ This was more of a blessed fucking revelation than what all poor John had hallucinated in Patmos.

When the angel worked the spot between Crowley's shoulderblades, it felt _so_ good that a brief burst of ambient noise broke over them, a record needle dropped and lifted, as half a second slipped through Crowley's grasp before he caught it. The mirror fogged in an instant.

"Really, darling. You could just let it go," Aziraphale admonished him gently.

"Not a chance." He huffed through his nose defiantly. "Won't be rushed today. Had 'nough racing all over creation this week."

Aziraphale ducked around to his front, and Crowley hastily reconsolidated his metaphysical grip on the whole situation, in case his focus was further...compromised.

And it was. He hadn't been able to see Aziraphale's face before, but now all that radiant joy, care, and curiosity were shining like anything, and summoning sunglasses for defense seemed rude at the moment. It was hard to look away from, but a little hard to take, too. The angel just looked so damned delighted to be running sudsy fingers through his chest hair.

Not that Crowley was complaining.

His knees threatened to give out when Aziraphale ducked down to manhandle his left leg with slick strokes, inside and out, and then the right, and after that presumably oh wait oh fuck oh fuck oh oh _oh_

 _"Fucking -- fffuck!"_ he shouted.

 _AHHHHT // AHHT-AAHT-AHT // AHHHHHHT //_ stuttered the roar of the traffic outside.

"How intriguing," Aziraphale observed with a glowing smile; as the silence returned, he continued soapily exploring the same territory that had extracted the early morning curses: buttocks, perineum, testicles, rapidly rising cock, all the folds and valleys in between. "It's fascinating to watch you come awake, darling."

"Ngk _ahhhingh_ \-- come, awake, y-yeah," Crowley echoed vacantly.

Aziraphale stepped back and rinsed his hands, looking proper as ever even in the nude. "That's you then, you can rinse off."

Crowley blinked several times and then splashed down heavily, sloshing a massive wave of water all across the room. No point having a giant tub if you weren't going to make a mess with it.

Aziraphale called up a shallow silver bowl and used it to rinse his body standing, just like they'd done at the public baths in so many other times and places. Crowley stared -- openly, unapologetically, hungrily -- watching the cascades pour over the angel's rosy skin, wishing he could slow that down as well to make it last longer. But a time bubble inside a time bubble was overkill. If he could manage it at all.

"You’re rather subdued this morning, darling. Karshapana for your thoughts?" Aziraphale vanished the bowl and stepped up out of the bath.

"Mainly -- nng -- that -- I'd -- rrreally like to live a few more days, minimum," said Crowley.

Unable to bear whatever response might be forthcoming, he submerged completely to feel the warm muffling press of the water. It was like being touched all over at once, exactly the same amount everywhere. It _was_ that. He sank to the bottom of the bath and rested there, suspending his thoughts, sensing his skin. It was still unclenching cell by cell after what it had endured in the last sixteen hours or so.

He had no reason to resurface, either, except that he heard Aziraphale saying something garbled that was growing distant. As if he was walking away. None of that, now. 

Crowley shot out of the water with a mighty splash and clambered out of the tub, sloshing water everywhere just like Warlock used to do. Bathtime was fun, but he wasn't letting the angel out of his sight a moment before he had to.

He found Aziraphale drying off with a towel in the bedroom, the human way, as if he needed to -- was his patience limitless? -- and the process fluffed up the downy hair on the angel’s arms and legs and everywhere. Crowley decided to try a towel too, but he only got as far as wrapping it around his shoulders and balling it up in fists under his chin before he returned to studying the golden sunlit haze of fuzz that framed Aziraphale. It amounted to blasphemy, hiding all that splendor under clothing.

"What have you done with my trousers, you impossible thing?"

Oops.

"Aennnnnghmmmmm, dunno."

Crowley shivered and hugged himself tighter with the towel.

Aziraphale wandered out of the bedroom, naked and un-self-conscious, looking for all the world like an animated Titian. Crowley followed him -- it was unthinkable not to -- squinting in the pearlescent glow of all that exquisite skin in the morning light.

The angel daintily plucked his shirt off the floor. He beheld it with mild but sincere disapproval; it unwrinkled itself immediately and appeared slightly embarrassed, inasmuch as a garment could. Crowley knew the feeling. It was the only possible response to that particular face the principality made.

"What on _earth_ did you do with the rest of it, Crowley?" Aziraphale asked, starting on the buttons.

The past few hours were quite a blur -- actually the last day -- no, actually the last eleven years. Crowley made an effort to retrace the clothing removal business in his mind, step by step, in reverse. But he kept getting caught on the kissing parts, snagged by those sensory memories like spiderwebs. He was unable to reflect on them except in real time and on loop. And there were a _lot_ of kissing parts.

So his recall processes weren't up to snuff. He abandoned reflection for observation. The evidence in the room suggested they'd got as far as the trousers before Crowley had run out of patience and snapped his fingers, with an impulse that went something like _trousers off NOW and pants too thankyouverymuch and also the sodding socks and there's sock garters as well are you fucking kidding me angel BEGONE THE LOT OF YOU._

Much could go wrong with a miracle that haphazard. In his defense, he'd been distracted at the time.

"I think they're, um.....elsewhere," said Crowley reluctantly.

Aziraphale tutted at him and tugged his collar reproachfully.

"Sorry, angel."

"I had those made-to-measure in 1952," Aziraphale muttered. "I _was_ rather fond of them."

Crowley sniffed. "Not to split hairs, but that pair was actually only a few hours old."

That got him a reprimanding look and a top collar button buttoned. _At_ him. Hiding the Soft Spot. Crowley whined a little in the back of his throat, aroused and happy and afraid and confused amid all of this ridiculous afterglow.

 _Because what the fuck had just happened?_ There was a whole new frontier before them, between them, around them, or _something,_ and he had no notion of the laws or the landmarks. 

He only knew he wasn't going back. 

It was either obliteration or _this_ for the demon Crowley. Only options.

...And maybe that meant it didn't matter whether he knew what he was doing. Wasn't like he usually knew anyhow.

"I can do ‘em over for you," he offered. "I remember how they go."

"Do you?" Aziraphale sounded a mite dubious.

Crowley nodded rapidly. He raised his right hand, poised to click his fingers if he got the all clear. The towel fell from his shoulders and dangled at his side.

Aziraphale smiled despite himself and gave an involuntary _"hmmm"_ as he looked Crowley up and down. And then looked again.

"Go on then," he said.

Crowley dressed Aziraphale with a snap. Then he squirmed in place, unsettled by the intimate thrill of doing so. He knew every seam, every crease, every time-buffed button of the angel's attire. But creating them wholecloth made him feel as if his skin was too tight to contain all the ways he knew Aziraphale.

So Crowley stood there like a naked fucking fool, clutching a towel and gawking openmouthed, while the angel surveyed his handiwork. The jacket had him impressed; he ran his fingers down the edges of the lapels and felt the silk lining on the inside.

Crowley looked over to the barstools, to the identical jacket the angel had worn on the bus back home. The one that was sooty and smudged, in need of laundering. It had visible fingerprints on it. Cheek smudges. The angel had hinted that he didn’t want it cleaned.

Aziraphale spoke up and waved a hand to draw Crowley's attention back to the brand new ensemble. "This is rather well done, Crowley. Thank you."

He shrugged. "Don’t thank me, I owed you. So. Now we're square."

"Although --” Aziraphale adjusted his waistband. “Silk boxers? Really?"

"Look, I don't know what you had going on down there! Never even saw. Be grateful I gave you anything." Besides, he opted not to mention, he wanted his own unmentionables to be comfortable when they swapped again.

"Are you saying you'd prefer nothing?"

"Are you asking, angel?"

Aziraphale adjusted his cuff links and cocked an eyebrow. "Well, since you did me, I was wondering if I could do you."

Crowley’s eye twitched. "Yeah, ngm, yyy-y'did. Do me. Sure. Again. Anytime. _Ngk."_

"You know what I _meant,_ foul fiend."

"Fire away."

Half of Crowley's clothing was scattered around the room as well, but Aziraphale made it all new, just as Crowley had. It was essentially the same thing he'd been wearing for the last few days, only crisp and clean -- and perhaps a little softer to the touch -- with a faint scent of ozone and lemon. Angelic miracles hit his senses a bit like industrial cleaning chemicals for the first few seconds, but Aziraphale's were mellower than most.

“Seen worse,” Crowley shrugged, patting himself down. “Didn't know you’d even noticed what seams have been up to for the last hundred years.”

Aziraphale pouted. “I’m not as oblivious as all that! I appreciate quality, that’s all; I refuse to be ruled by the caprices of fashion. But I always notice what you wear.”

The demon harumphed and turned up his jacket collar saucily. 

For some reason that made Aziraphale's eyes spark with mischief. “.....What?” Crowley demanded.

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” the angel replied in a suspicious singsong voice. “It occurs to me that it might amuse you -- as me -- to do a bit of shopping, seeing as this is now my only ensemble. You know I prefer my clothing terrestrially sourced.”

“ _Pffffft.”_ Now _there_ was an idea. Crowley stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “You'd seriously let me take your body shopping?”

“Although you probably shouldn't visit my tailor. He'd notice, I think.”

Crowley snorted. “Hang on. _He'd_ notice, but you think we can fool Heaven and Hell?”

“Darling, Heaven knows so little about me…” Aziraphale trailed off and clasped his hands, as if preparing to pray, but after a moment he let them fall to his sides. “...I’m already certain of your success. No, it's Hell I'm worried about.”

Crowley craned his neck back to study the ceiling. He didn’t want to think about that. “Yeah. ...Bloody Hastur's gonna have it in for me.”

“He sounds dreadful.”

“Oh, he is. Pissed off about the Fields of Megiddo thing, not to mention Ligur. Y'know Warlock told him -- a Duke of Hell, to his face -- that he smelled like poo?”

A ridiculous chirpy titter escaped Aziraphale. “Did he really?”

Crowley grinned and nodded. “He did. Betcha Warlock had a weird day, enh?”

“Oh dear. You’re right, he surely did. Still, I must say, I'm relieved the fate of the world did not ultimately rest on his shoulders.”

Aziraphale made for the kitchen and started fussing with the dishes. He was only putting them back in the cupboard, but Crowley thought of nearly all the angel's activities as 'fussing,' so it counted. He leaned a hip against the counter and watched.

“Rather a lot of humans had extraordinary encounters yesterday,” Aziraphale went on. “Remind me to tell you sometime about my first few minutes with Madame Tracy. And the voodoo priest I met. Oh, not to mention this horrid sanctimonious swindler over in the States -- one of the sorts Joshua drove out of the Temple with a whip, you remember that? He was an evangelist, but he was Hell's through and through, riddled with avarice. I do hope I gave his acolytes a thing or two to think about.”

“That was a fine day at the Temple,” Crowley recalled wistfully. “Lambs 'n kids 'n feathers everywhere, total chaos. 'S when I knew me and the Messiah were gonna get along just fine. Despite my quarrels with his Mum.”

Aziraphale gave him a look packed with several layers of meaning, and as well as he knew the angel, he did sometimes wish there were an index for his more complicated expressions.

“So, what would you do today?” asked Aziraphale. “Or what should I do, as you?”

Crowley shrugged. “Assuming they don't show up the minute we part ways -- I dunno, probably laze around here. Reading's a chore, what with the eyes, sorry, an' I know you're not much for TV. Maybe...there’s the music collection, I s’pose? Or billiards. Or karaoke if y’like, that’s one of mine.”

“That’s yours? But it’s so quintessentially human. And not particularly evil...” Aziraphale thought for a moment. “Ah. I see.”

“Hell was pushing for some big new win, an’ I was sick to death of getting congratulated for plagues ‘n plastics. As a bonus, everyone in Hell now has to suffer through karaoke nights, while I do _not._ Not bad for an afternoon’s work.”

“Perhaps I’ll try it, then.”

Crowley imagined the machine’s memory filling with backing tracks of Puccini and Schubert. “Or don’t.”

“And what do you propose we do if they don't come for us right away?”

“We meet up again. Say, late afternoon? They'll be expecting us to.”

“At St. James's?”

“Yeah. Nice 'n open. Easy for them to spot us.”

“And you can always phone me from --” Aziraphale stopped, his breath hitching painfully. He covered his eyes with his open palms. “From a payphone.”

“Aziraphale…”

The angel tried to compose himself, but his hands took flight, reaching out, retracting, wringing together, fluttering apart. “What I mean is, You can call from a payphone if anything changes, because the bookshop's not there, which means the phone isn't there _in_ the bookshop. So you couldn’t...I'm -- I keep forgetting.”

With a deep breath, Aziraphale straightened up his posture, tugged at the hem of his waistcoat, and brushed past Crowley a little too swiftly, headed for the office.

Agitated, itching with the urge to fix this _(fucking Fix! This! you fucking)_ unfixable thing, Crowley followed him, tripping his way through the beginnings of a dozen words and rejecting them all. “Nngh ennh ffft uhh tsss -- it's -- I...it's…..”

“It’s nothing,” the angel told the room. He paced briskly to the window to look out over London.

“...........Ssssorry,” Crowley groaned weakly.

“It’s only the Shakespeare folios,” Aziraphale said. “The Sappho fragments. The misprints. The Murasaki scroll.” 

So it was finally hitting him. The angel’s strong shoulders were squared, he held his head high, but the realization was settling on him like a cloak of lead. 

Crowley’s eyes stung. He tasted salt and ash. “I know, angel,” he said.

“The Joplin wax cylinders.”

“I know.”

“The letters you sent me. All gone now.”

Crowley surged forward a step before he could stop himself. “You were s'posed to burn those!”

“Well I did, didn’t I, in the end?”

 _Fuck._ He’d saved them. He’d saved them, and now they were gone, which they were supposed to be, but he’d _saved them,_ and what the hel -- what the fuck was a demon to say to that?

His jaw worked soundlessly for several seconds. “...A -- a -- a-angel,” he implored faintly.

“It’s done.” Aziraphale turned and examined the ansaphone on the desk with undue fascination. His expression was unspeakably, purely, perfectly sad. “And -- and it’s getting late, so you should go, Crowley. We should go.”

“Or,” Crowley offered, “we could just _not.”_

“No, we cannot _not._ It’s our time.” The ring of steel resonated behind Aziraphale's quiet words; flame flickered in his downcast eyes. “I'll feel better once this dreadful business is over with.”

 _Nope. Don’t wanna. Not a fucking chance. Nuh-uh._ “Rather not leave you alone again.”

“Oh, you’ll be with me in a manner of speaking,” said Aziraphale, but he said it too breezily. Too brightly.

Crowley stood there feeling loose, or tight, or -- feeling off. The steps of their ancient pas de deux wouldn’t serve him anymore. He wasn't sure what was allowed, he wasn't even sure what he wanted, he just knew he had to _fucking fix this_ somehow before they parted ways. _Make it better._ He twisted his shoulders uncomfortably. Maybe Aziraphale hadn't got the fit quite right after all.

When he stepped toward the desk his boot clacked on the concrete, echoing loudly down the hall. He banished the shoes and took another step, barefoot. And another. And another, until his scale-dappled toes nearly touched vintage -- well, vintage-inspired, now -- brown Oxfords.

“Aziraphale?” 

The angel turned toward him but didn’t meet his gaze, resting unfocused eyes somewhere around Crowley's collarbone. Crowley waved his hands helplessly up and down around him, tracing but not touching, unsure what to do. No plan. His plans were mostly rubbish but he still hated not having a plan.

“We'll sort it all out after,” said Aziraphale faintly.

Crowley's brow furrowed. He laid a hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. That was allowed, right? If washing feet was allowed, so was this. Had to be. 

“Yeah, we will,” he said, “'cos I'll take care of you.”

Aziraphale grimaced and shut his eyes tight. “I'm preparing to -- to let it all go, I _am,_ but I can't do it all at once, and I can't do it right now; I'm...” He raised a hand between them, his fingers grasping at the nothing they found in the air. “...At least I can begin. Or prepare to begin. Or _try_ to prepare to...”

“You jus' come back here in one piece and we'll be all over that.” Crowley squeezed his shoulder. “We can try to begin to commence to start or, or whatever it was.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale's searching fingertips came to rest on Crowley's lapel. He petted it, smoothed it up and down, and finally looked up. He wasn’t _better._ But he was looking up. “You'll come back in one piece, too. And then...we'll...”

“Mmh.” Crowley nodded.

“Very well, then. I suppose it's time.”

And Aziraphale kissed him goodbye.

Crowley went absolutely still and let him.

Of course he was all a riot inside, fighting to contain the wild panicky sparks and electric arcs lit by angel touch. Aziraphale set him off like that California fireworks display he'd ruined (improved) a few years back, _BOOM_ all at once. And apparently this was a multiple-goodbye-kiss situation, so it kept going on and on; colors and combustion, over and over, with every soft press of lips and squeeze of fingertips. _Fuck._ Crowley felt sure he'd explode if this kept up long enough, but maybe that wasn't so bad; there'd been a lot of explosions lately and for some reason the demon Crowley was still kicking, so why the Heav -- so why the fuck not? Why not kiss an angel? Why not kiss an angel harder?

He opened his mouth and Aziraphale took it as an invitation to plunder him.

Crowley's knees buckled. They were both making sounds now, funny muffled moans and creaks and smacks; why did bodies have to be so stupidly humbling? And if the angel's first kiss had been soft and sad, saying farewell, now his lips were forcefully reminding Crowley _No, you, mine, here, alive, we're alive, now, mine, here, now;_ and that was all fine, wasn't it, yes, good, all on the same page then, right; the only question was how to say it _back_ when Crowley's corporation seemed to be misfiring left and right, hands grabbing haplessly, legs all liquid, tongue thick and slow, sweat and blood and saliva migrating all over the damn place without permission.

“Ffff -- mmmng -- we -- aaanjjjjhlll, we --” was all he could manage, between the fireworks.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale -- _somefuckinghow_ enunciating perfectly even with his tongue halfway down Crowley's throat, how did _that_ work -- “Yes, love. _We.”_

And then Crowley's eyes widened as Aziraphale fisted his hands in that new black jacket, _shit, strong, what --_ and propelled Crowley backward into his desk, _fuck_ \-- and then his angel came silently _roaring_ over him, onto him, all around him, an overwhelming wave of ethereal glory. Crowley was fucking _buried_ in the feeling. Filled. Flooded. Underwater.

“ _Oh,”_ he heard Aziraphale say, from somewhere above the surface, and it was an _oh_ that made Crowley reach with everything he had to fill that age-old hollow between his arms with _warm soft light yes_ angel, to clasp their silly fleshy bodies together as tight as he could.

 _Fuck_ that felt good.

Thousands of years knowing this would never ever _ever_ happen -- washed clean away. With handfuls of plump celestial arse and hot breath on his neck, who bloody cared? He could face Heaven and Hell and She Herself any day of the week now. None of it mattered because after all this time, the two of them were finally on board, they were so on board, they were _so_ _on board_ that Aziraphale was grinding against him again _fuck again okay again sure again yes again_ and tasting his throat with all the thorough determination he brought to deconstructing Chaucer and Chekhov and chocolate cake --

“Come here, come here, come the fuck _here,”_ Crowley groaned, even though they couldn't possibly have been closer. He wedged one hand between them and cupped Aziraphale's cock, _ha, he has a cock, for me, for this, he has one, right here, come here, come here --_ he touched him through the loose trousers and then fumbled the fly open, _come here come HERE._

Aziraphale was nodding his head hard and fast, _yes yes yes, okay, yes angel, I'm doing it, yes,_ downy hair rubbing on Crowley's neck, he wondered if it would throw sparks, _yes;_ right, _THERE_ he was _(!)_ the heavy fabric parted and his fingertips found the silk of the boxers he'd dreamed into existence minutes ago, smooth, satiny, lovely, a really good idea, like _really_ really, _fuck --_

“Darling -- Crowley, darling -- _oh --_ go on, this is --”

Aziraphale's voice wavered through every word, and he left off speaking to suck desperately on the hollow of Crowley’s neck. 

Crowley went on. He had been invited. _Darling._ He was darling. He reached, reached _there,_ just there, and he found the hard heft of Aziraphale’s cock with one hand, grasped the rich yielding weight of balls with the other, _fuck, come here,_ and as his breath shuddered in and out Crowley fondled both through a sheath of silk, _oh fuck,_ and he was only sure any of this was happening because the fabric and the hot flesh in combination felt like nothing he'd imagined before, not like this; _stupid word, fondle, why does that have to be what it's called, why is it absolutely what I'm doing, fuck, fond of him,_ _fondling, fond, FUCK_

Aziraphale pinned Crowley against the desk and _thrust_ into his hand with a low growl that came out leonine, animalistic. Crowley gasped for air, growing dizzy, thinking how a principality could absolutely crush him flat if he wanted to; _all right, sure, fuck, come here then, DO IT;_ Crowley's fingers found their way beyond the veil of silk and he made a fist, grabbed hold for dear life, fuck, the angel's skin was on fire, _yes, come here, come to me, crush me,_ he was pulling Aziraphale closer and closer with every stroke, knocking against his own trapped and aching cock, burying his face in the angel's neck, wrapping an arm around his trembling body, _yes,_ _come to me, cover me, corner me, trap me, crush me, thwart me -- “Angel!”_ he cried, and they kissed.

Aziraphale came to him.

He shook and shook under Crowley's hands, against his lips, and when he finally exhaled and pulled away, tear tracks framed his flushed face. They collapsed into one another, foreheads pressed together, and came down breathing the same air until they shared a steady, slowing cadence.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, “do come back.”

The demon nodded.

Aziraphale reached for Crowley's arse with both hands and picked him right up off the ground. “Your turn.”

“Oh fuck,” said Crowley.

“Indeed,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley was deposited on the edge of his own damned desk, and then the angel was unbuttoning his actual damned jeans, across which there was an ethereal blessed stain, and Crowley's poor damned head was not _at all_ keeping up with this turn of events. Not that it needed to. The rest of his corporation was keeping up with it just fine, thanks; fuck, zipper, _fuckfuckfuck,_ FUCK --

 _There._ Time lurched forward a half-second. The shadows shifted infinitesimally on the wall. The central air gasped. Crowley groaned in ecstasy.

Aziraphale kissed him quiet and cradled his junk in one warm hand. _Junk:_ junk was fine. Fine word, junk. Aziraphale had poetry in his trousers, but Crowley had junk, and he absolutely preferred things that way, the better to get banged about and broken in like --

“Comfortable, dearest?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley strained forward, legs dangling, pressing his pelvis into the hand that held him. “Nnnot really, but comfortable's not the point just now,” he managed through gritted teeth. “What -- what did you -- hhhave in mind, angel?”

Aziraphale snapped a small miracle into existence. Then, with a delighted wiggle and a devastating smile, he settled himself on the relocated throne, right between Crowley's legs.

“Oh, it's just that I've always wanted to try this,” said the angel. “I've thought about it rather a lot. You must tell me how it feels.” He licked his lips _(how is that allowed)_ he _licked_ his blessed _lips_ and hummed happily _. Oh. Fuck._ “Ready?”

Crowley wasn’t sure whether he’d nodded, or whether he could, but Aziraphale took his meaning. Maybe it was all the chaotic hip gyration. Or the audible desperate panting that Crowley already planned to deny for the rest of eternity.

With no further preamble, Aziraphale swallowed Crowley's cock and moaned appreciatively around it.

_Fuuuuuck --_

There were no words for how it felt; there didn't need to be. Crowley was ready to supernova out of himself, or maybe collapse into himself, or both, and the sensation of tongue on the tip of his cock was born of same spark that had set off the big bang, _and he should_ _know_ a thing or two about --

 _FUCK_ Aziraphale adjusted the angle and opened his throat, sighing aloud with contentment like there was nowhere he'd rather be, and _that'll do it angel, okay angel, holy fucking fuck --_

“ _Aaaaauuuuoooooaaah --”_ Crowley had been issuing a seemingly unending double-backed ribbon of vowels from the moment the angel tasted him. Leaning back on his elbows, Crowley arched toward the sky, arched _into_ the angel on his throne; his legs trembled wildly, bare toes almost scraping the floor. _What. How. This._ This -- _this_ \-- this put Heaven to shame, and the sweetness of sin too, _yes,_ and every question Crowley had ever asked, _like that, yes, like that, oh fuck;_ Aziraphale's firm hands grasping his hips were the answer, always had been, always would be.

The rising rhythm bore him closer to the brink. Crowley gripped the edge of the desk white-knuckled, his mouth falling wide open, lungs churning the air as the sound of traffic rose and crested over him. He knew he was losing his grip. The crashing stutter of humanity outside -- of rush, of crush, of exhaust and existence, _AAAHT // AAHT AAAAAHT //_ it all tempted him -- invited him -- _let go, let go, let's go --_ a head rush, a shudder, toes taut, thighs clenched, falling flexing crying out -- _let go, let go of all of it, let go, go, time to go --_

And he felt Aziraphale, between his legs, nod _yes._

With a sudden shout and an explosive blaze of vertigo, Crowley _released._

He gave Aziraphale what he wanted. Gave the world back to itself. Gave an angel and a demon back to the world. _Something like that --_

 _RAAAAHR!!!_ sang London, dirty, enduring, alive.

 _Ffffwühhhhhhh!!!_ went Crowley's wings, crossing dimensions for a fraction of a moment as he came. They spread high and wide, mantling the throne in a looming serrated darkness, but they flickered out of reality again faster than flinching.

 _Rrrrip,_ went Crowley's jacket.

“Fucked fucking -- _fuck,_ angel!” Crowley yelled, surprised as anything.

Aziraphale sat up straight and gave a little shoulder shimmy, dabbing his mouth with a handkerchief and looking tremendously pleased with himself. “I'd say that went rather well, don't you think?” he remarked.

“Ooaaaghhhll-Lllllnng,” said Crowley.

He perched there, scrambled and sweaty and heaving, while Aziraphale daintily tucked them both away and tidied everything up. The angel looked for all the world like he was ready to ask for the dessert menu at the Savoy.

A shifting shaft of sunshine found Crowley's temple. He looked up and out the window, pupils contracting needle-narrow in the light. A flock of starlings swirled past.

Crowley stared into the sun, unblinking, for far too long. His mind was clear and quiet. He knew what happened next. He would go. He would go to keep his angel safe.

Heaven and Hell might be big, but they were smaller than this.

Crowley sniffed. Fine, then, daytime. _Whatever._ Let it do its worst. He begrudgingly put his boots back on, shook out his shoulders, and stretched his arms, ruffling the tatters that were left of his clothing. The breeze of his movements set a few stray black feathers spinning where they'd landed on the desk.

Aziraphale stood, smoothing out his ivory coat. “And how are you, my dear?”

Crowley examined a panel of his shredded jacket. “Nngh. Not really a morning person.”

“Ready for the big day?”

“Ready? Am _I_ ready?” Crowley looked him up and down. The angel had been on the verge of weeping, just a few minutes ago -- actually, no minutes ago, there hadn't been any at the time. The un-time. The whatever. At any rate, now he was looking fresh as daisies, in that signature Aziraphale way that should have been obnoxious but inexplicably wasn't.

“Ennnh, I dunno,” he shrugged. “‘Nother bath, maybe? Not exactly freshly washed anymore.”

Aziraphale fixed him with a _look._

“Fine, fine,” Crowley acquiesced. “Just gimme a second.”

He eased himself onto his feet, and since that put them practically nose to nose -- since he _could --_ he planted a chaste little cheek kiss on his angel. The sunlight lit Aziraphale’s hair in a proper halo, because Crowley had to let it. There would be no more tight-knuckled time theft. No more holding back the morning. In every way, the moment had passed.

So with a snap of his fingers, Crowley settled his appearance the way he liked -- hair, sunglasses, shirt, waistcoat. He fixed everything except the jacket.

“Shall I do the honors?” asked Aziraphale, with a preparatory turn of the wrist.

Crowley shook his head quickly. “No no. Don't touch this one. Souvenir.”

“Really! How sentimental,” laughed Aziraphale, and dammit, _there_ was the smile, the radiant delight that had been undoing Crowley stitch by stitch since Eden.

“'S not sentimental,” Crowley grumbled, “it's admissible evidence that that just fucking _happened.”_ He tugged the ruined garment off -- it looked more like a string of prayer flags than anything else -- and slung it over the back of the throne. “All right, go on.”

The Principality Aziraphale stepped clear and, for the second time that morning, dressed a demon in a custom miracle.

Crowley plopped down into his throne, reminding it who was boss, and put his feet up. “There. Fine. Ready. Need anything, angel?”

“Just a spot of courage,” said Aziraphale, drawing near, trailing fingertips over the back of Crowley’s right hand. “And you’ve always had enough for the both of us. Shall we?”

Crowley craned his head back, searching for the angel's eyes, while they were still the angel's. He wanted the shape and shine of them fresh in his memory. 

“We're coming back, Aziraphale,” he said. “Both of us. And now --”

_Now._

Crowley slapped the gilded arm of his throne. “You can just sit here till you've got the limbs recalibrated.”

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale. “Oh, and remember to keep your eyes closed to start.” He extended his hand. Crowley stared at it. The manicured nails, the signet ring, the ineffably soft fingers that had reconstituted his universe in just a few hours.

“Heaven of a night,” Crowley said, and then he caught himself. “I mean -- Hell -- I mean, that -- some -- that was a fffuckin' --”

“It was rather a night,” Aziraphale confirmed. Crowley wrinkled his nose in assent and clasped the angel's hand.

 _Come here,_ he thought.

“Let's go,” he said.

After the many dazzling, devastating, overwhelming ordeals their corporations had endured in the past twenty-four hours, slipping free felt so simple. A switch. Airy and easy. A little tingly. Crowley covered his eyes and Aziraphale tested his joints carefully, one at a time.

They adjusted. They took a few turns around Crowley's flat, mostly in comfortable silence, feeling the sway of each other's spines, remembering the pace and space that fit one another's feet.

It didn't take long.

The sun rose higher and threatened to retreat into the clouds. They met in the conservatory, in the green riot of Crowley's plants, for their final inspection. The spotless leaves looked on as they tested the faces they had chosen for the day. Aziraphale straightened Crowley's bow tie, although Crowley had no doubt it was already straight. Crowley creased Aziraphale's jacket collar just so.

“Heyyy!” Crowley scowled when he spotted the new lining underneath. “The fuck is this? You out to ruin my reputation?”

Aziraphale giggled like a child caught with candy. Crowley shrank back; it was downright surreal to see his own face beaming joyfully. Profane, that's what it was. He reached to adjust his sunglasses and nearly poked himself in the eye before he remembered they weren't there.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale stuffed his hands in his pockets and managed to convert the broad smile into a convincingly demonic smirk. “Wot?” he teased.

Crowley responded with a suitably Aziraphalesque eyeroll and an exasperated bridge-of-the-nose pinch. “Utterly diabolical,” he groused.

“I know, right? 'S perfect,” Aziraphale grinned.

Crowley looked around them at the palms, the monstera, the snake plants, the pothos, the ferns. They were so different through these eyes. "You lot had better behave," he told them, but he didn't sound half as sinister as he meant to.

"It really is a lovely garden," Aziraphale said.

"Whatever," said Crowley, wondering to himself whether a park bench would ruin the aesthetic. "Let's go."

There were no goodbye kisses at the door. Crowley had no desire whatsoever to get that close to his own face. But as he stepped out into the corridor, it was possible he felt a flash of suitably infernal pride, taking one last technicolor look at that handsome roguish figure. The hair was really something. Sexy as Hell. Not that Hell was sexy. Crowley knew sexy.

Aziraphale gave a little wave of his hand, a gesture that was all him, and Crowley nodded. “Bye, angel,” he said.

“Till we meet again, foul fiend,” Aziraphale replied. He hesitated on the threshold for a moment -- 

Crowley could see the angel's face reflected in those dark glasses, and it looked so very familiar, longing, loving, soft; he hadn't known he could mimic that expression so exactly -- 

And then the door clicked shut between them. Crowley didn't leave until he heard the deadbolt turn.

The Mayfair morning air felt brisk and bright. The traffic thundered, the garbage smelled, the leaves shone like jewels, the birds sang and shat everywhere, the humans were cruel and courteous and everything in-between. They were all real, and they were all still here.

Against all odds -- a new day.

Crowley hadn't decided where to spend it yet. But he knew where he was bound first, because it was where Aziraphale would go. Filling the angel's lungs with pungent London air, he began to walk -- first one foot, then the other, every movement heavy, resistant, slow and steady. Each limb required calculations and care. But it was a journey back to what was once the angel’s bookshop, and he'd have it all down again before the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Fic-a-versary! It's a year to the day since I posted my very first story to AO3, 'Recounting the Deeds of the Day.' This story, a year later, completes the cycle! Come yell with me on Tumblr!!!!!!
> 
> Thank you to @willowherb for beta-ing and Britpicking. 
> 
> Thank you to @lazulibundtcake for valuable opinions about smut blocking.
> 
> Thank all of YOU for your comments and your shares, because your support made me want to keep writing a LOT MORE STUFF. 
> 
> I LOVE YOU! I'mma go eat cake.


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